“Expensive, complicated and remote from citizens”, this is how Ove Petersen, the founder and managing director of GP JOULE summed it up. From the point of view of the renewable energy sector, the planning reliability is threatened. The whole sector proceeded on the basis that the EEG amendment will come into force on January 1, 2015, and not – as just announced– on August 1, 2014. “We have trusted in this deadline as binding and based all our planning for projects in progress on it. Above all, we regard the cut-off date for the old EEG subsidization on January 22, 2014 as an enormous breach of trust.
The deadlines were published that day for the first time! Many projects in progress thus become economically inefficient as they have been calculated on the basis of the full EEG subsidization which should have been valid until the end of 2014.” In the face of the great uncertainty due to the amended deadlines it is to be expected that banks will withdraw financial commitments or charge significant risk charges on financing costs and increase equity requirements which finally causes harm for the citizens, too. “If we cannot undertake the scheduled investments, the municipalities will be also affected as they will collect less business tax, and the local companies will get receive orders. Cooperatives of citizens and similar local initiatives will find it difficult to build e.g. own wind parks in the face of increasing interest rates and severe equity conditions.”
The involvement of independent power generation into the EEG apportionment gave also rise to discussions. “Especially small and medium to large combined heat and power (KWK) installations are cost effective, climate-friendly, decentralized and a more intelligent form of energy generation”, explained Ove Petersen. The same is true for PV installations with more than 10 kWp of rated capacity with which households as well as small and medium companies can contribute actively and in a decentralized way to the energy turnaround. “To make these power plants unprofitable is not useful from the economic point of view.” For the successful implementation of the energy turnaround power plants which are low-priced, with reliable forecasts and easy to control are of central importance as it is the case for solar parks with a performance of 10 MWp. “These plants produce electricity at low cost close to the consumer. This reduces the needs in additional grid capacity. Currently these plants do not qualify for payments under the EEG. We would wish that municipalities can decide about the authorization of these parks and the related payments under the EEG on their own. They are the experts of the local situation and know whether the local citizens would like to take part in the energy turnaround directly by means of a model of financial participation.”
Petersen summarized: “The aim of the energy turnaround must be the decarburization!” We have appropriate tools for it: If a ton of CO2 cost 40 Euro, the EEG approbation would fall by 3 cent per KWh. A future-oriented energy policy must subordinate all other political interests to the reduction of CO2.
Reußenköge, Schleswig-Holstein/Berlin
January 28, 2014
PR contact:
Mr. Timo Bovi
Director Governmental Relations and Public Affairs
GP JOULE GmbH
Tel.: +49-30-520 00 57-806
Fax: +49-30-520 00 57-877
E-mail: t.bovi(at)gp-joule.de
The company:
Simply energy – according to this slogan GP JOULE develops, engineers and implements projects for the promising utilization of renewable energies. Co-founders and agricultural engineers, Ove Petersen and Heiner Gärtner together with André Hirsch, diploma in business administration, aim to combine the interests of land use and profitability in order to create exciting and profitable opportunities for investors. Besides the business fields of solar, wind and biomass energy, with their future strategies division they have established a knowledge pool that integrates the know-how of all their specialist departments and allows them to create comprehensive energy solutions. At the same time they are focusing on the research of new technologies. GP JOULE has got four locations in Germany and two international locations in the USA and Canada. The headquarters is in Reußenköge in Northern Germany.
